Grant Pleased With NASCAR Suit Settlement, Questions Remain

LEFT UNRESOLVED: ESPN.com's Ed Hinton wrote under the header, "Lawsuit's Settlement Means We'll Never Know Fact From Fiction." Another lawsuit that was "supposed to shake the foundations of NASCAR suddenly has gone silent for keeps." Though "money changed hands to the satisfaction of both sides, the questions that had been raised in the minds of the public went unanswered." Hinton: "NASCAR doesn't lose landmark cases. NASCAR settles before the large questions are resolved. ... For a company totally dependent on the public -- the fans, the ticket buyers -- for its birth and very existence for 60 years, NASCAR remains, at its innermost, the most unknowable sports league there is" (ESPN.com, 12/19). YAHOO SPORTS legal analyst Craig Silverman said the settlement was "a way for NASCAR to stop the bleeding and not air any dirty laundry or even any allegations of dirty laundry." Silverman: "You can't help but notice the timing, which is during the holiday season when news gets less emphasis and people aren't really paying attention to NASCAR. She sued for $225[M], but I don't think she got anything even close to that. But any kind of fraction of $225[M] can still be pretty large" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 12/19).

MOVING FORWARD: In Charlotte, David Poole wrote the thing that "bothered me all along since Grant filed her suit in June was that NASCAR never substantially denied the thrust of lurid allegations leveled in the complaint." Poole: "Let's hope this lawsuit leads to a commitment from NASCAR to ensure that its officials treat each other with more respect and more dignity than what was apparently happening" when Grant worked for NASCAR. Poole: "That's the least the sport should settle for" (CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.com, 12/19).

Print This Article